fria_. They
entered the present region of California from Sonora or New Mexico, and
on their way passed a lake now called Lake Elizabeth, on the border of
the California desert. There a violent west wind blows night and day.
It is a real _sirocco_, dry, and so hot as to remind one of a blast
from a furnace. The Mexicans accordingly made the country beyond it the
fourth in their series of ascending temperatures, and named it _tierra
california_, the country hot as a furnace.

This report is one of the most valuable produced by the survey. During
the year the great area in California which lies below the level of the
sea was examined to ascertain whether it could be filled and maintained
as a lake by a canal from the Colorado river, and the decision is in
the negative. The depressed area covers about 1,600 square miles in
California, and the difference between the rainfall and the evaporation
is so small that if the whole Colorado river were poured into the
basin, it would cover only 556 square miles of surface, or little more
than one-third the basin. Filling would cease at that level for the
reason that the whole supply of the river would disappear in vapor. The
slope of the Colorado river is extraordinary, 2.13 feet per mile at
Stone's Ferry, and 1.21 feet at Camp Mohave, which may be compared with
eight inches, the average fall of the Mississippi per mile. At Stone's
Ferry the velocity is 3.217 feet per second and the discharge 18,410
cubic feet. Great difficulties stand in the way of the proposed canal,
and the engineers do not think the lake, if it could be formed, would
have an appreciable effect upon the climate of the surrounding region.
The primary object of this survey is to carry the grand triangulation
of the continent across the country under its jurisdiction, and to map
the surface so as to enable the Government to put the ground properly
in market. In addition to these objects a great amount of valuable work
is done in geology and natural history.

Prof. Jules Marcou, geologist attached to the survey, points out that
the valleys of Santa Clara and Santa Barbara in California may become
the site of _true_ artesian oil wells. The ordinary flowing oil well is
supposed to obtain the force which lifts its oil above the surface
level from confined gases in the earth, but in California the lift will
be obtained in precisely the same manner as in the case of artesian
wells for water. There are strata of sandston